The drivers and muleteers had recovered their self-possession, and were all sitting or standing at their posts, with their miscellaneous arms ready for action.

Not a human being had been hit as yet, and only three of the mules wounded, none of them seriously.

The Apaches were all around the train, but none of them nearer than two hundred yards, and doing nothing but canter about and shout to each other.
"Where is Texas Smith ?" demanded Thurstane, missing that mighty hunter, and wondering if he were a coward and had taken refuge in a wagon.
"He went off shutin' an hour ago," explained Phineas Glover.

"Reckon he's astern somewhere." Glover, by the way, had been useful.

In the beginning of the affray he had brought his mule alongside of the headmost wagon, and there he had done really valuable service by blazing away alarmingly, though quite innocuously, at the gallopading enemy.
"It's a bad lookout for Texas," observed the Lieutenant "I shouldn't want to bet high on his getting back to us." Coronado looked gloomy, fearing lest his trusted assassin was lost, and not knowing where he could pick up such another.
"And how are the ladies ?" asked Thurstane, turning to Glover.
"Safe 's a bug in a rug," was the reply.